Ross Valley Sanitary District in San Rafael, California services approximately 47,000 mostly residential customers over a 27 square mile service area. They have 5 major pump stations, which is where Ross Valley found themselves having the most trouble. The existing channel grinders were simply not reliable.
“It was constant headache,” said Philip Marcantonio, Senior Collection System Worker. “The pumps were ragging up sometimes twice a week and sometimes twice a day.” The plant reported that the machines were not efficient at all. “It was a lot of extra work on us to keep the stations going,” Marcantonio said. On top of that, the constant downtime was causing even more than extra work; it was costing the district a lot of money. They knew this was not a sustainable system to keep their plant and stations running.
According to Noel Sandoval, Operations Supervisor, that’s when the engineers suggested the plant purchase a Franklin Miller DIMMINUTOR®. “It was a great decision. Once we installed the DIMMINUTOR, all our problems went away.”
The DIMMINUTOR grinder has a design that is truly unique in the industry. It has a few multi-toothed rotary and stationary cutters that are independently adjustable and replaceable without time-consuming unit disassembly. “The Dimmy is a great machine,” Marcantonio said.
The Dimminutor also has a heavy stationary screen that retains the oversized solids and is self-cleared by the rotating cutters. Since it is stationary, it never wears against bottom grit. With its cantilevered design, the DIMMINUTOR needs no seals or bearings near the gritty channel floor. Ross Valley performs routine maintenance every six months or so to inspect and clean the machine. “Maintenance is so simple,” Sandoval said. “We just take off the bolts, clean and inspect each machine... and then we’re done.”
They credit the DIMMINUTOR design of rotating bi-directional cutters as a major reason the units work so well. “The rotating cutters make a huge difference, changing direction every two hours. It pretty much breaks up anything.” Marcantonio added. “The rotating and reversing helps with teeth wear as well as cleaning any stuck debris,” he said. “Our previous grinders just ran until they broke, stopped working, overheated or tripped out. Our on-call staff was working constantly to fix them, costing us so much money. With the DIMMINUTOR units in place, we can now spend our time and money on other things that serve our plant and customers.”
The team at Ross Valley also commended Franklin Miller’s support and customer service. “Franklin Miller customer service is hands down the best,” Sandoval said. “Every time we call with questions, they are there for us. They’ve sent people out to us when we needed, to go over each part and make sure we were at peak performance, and they even hosted us in their New Jersey plant to learn best practices on service and building these machines.”
“The Dimmy is a godsend,” Marcantonio said. “They are truly like they say, built like a tank. It is a workhorse for us.”
Sandoval continued, “We stay with Franklin Miller because not only does the product perform, but the people there are behind it for us 24/7.”
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Editor's Note: Scranton Gillette Communications and the SGC Water Group are not liable for the accuracy, efficacy and validity of the claims made in this piece. The views expressed in this content do not reflect the position of the editorial teams of Water & Wastes Digest, Water Quality Products and Storm Water Solutions.
